kbrown@usao.edu's blog

March is Women’s History month and we recommend that you explore Women and Social Movements in the U.S., 1600-2000, Scholar's Edition, a mainstay of women’s history scholarship and teaching in universities worldwide.

The Oxford English dictionary has added new words and revised entries between refund and  reputeless. Other new words from across the alphabet have been added, too.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography's January 2010 update is now available. This update contains entries on 211 men and women who died in 2006, including Muriel Spark, Syd Barrett, and John Profumo.

The latest update to Grove Art Online focuses on the contemporary art of Australia.

This month Grove is pleased to introduce 100 new articles from the forthcoming second edition of the Grove Dictionary of American Music, edited by Charles Hiroshi Garrett.

Nash Library is now working with Better World Books, the "online bookstore with a soul" to find readers for books donated to us but not added to our collection for various reasons. Better World Books believes "that education and access to books are basic human rights." We could not agree more.

Five percent of the proceeds from sales of books sent by Nash Library to Better World Books will be deposited into the Jayne Nash Montgomery Library Society, our "friends of the library" group. This group sponsors an annual lecture during homecoming weekend.

Fifteen percent of the proceeds will go to the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL).  According to its website, the NCFL "fuels life improvement for the nation's most disadvantaged children and parents. More than 1 million families throughout the country have made positive educational and economic gains as a result of NCFL's work, which includes training more than 150,000 teachers and thousands of volunteers."

Eighty percent of the proceeds go towards the operating expenses incurred by Better World Books, including the purchase of carbon offsets (so that "every order is shipped carbon neutral").

By partnering with Better World Books, we realize a revenue stream for our friends group, we contribute to a wonderful cause, and we keep books out of the landfill. We hope you will support Better World Books by checking their inventory when making your next book purchase.

Congratulations to the Class of 2009! We enjoyed seeing you in the library the past few years. Special congratulations to Wei Chan Lee and Ashlie Henderson for their hours of hard work for Nash Library. We wish you the very best.

Nash Library now subscribes to Cambridge Collections Online (CCO) which includes access to Cambridge Companions to Literature and Classics and Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture.

Cambridge Companions to Literature and Classics collection offers over 1500 comprehensive and accessible essays on major authors, periods and genres, written by experts and designed for student readers. For the author Companions, each writer is placed in literary and historical context; their major works are analyzed, either in separate chapters or grouped according to theme, and their influence on later writers assessed. The genre and topical Companions cover periods of English literature such as Old English or the Victorian Novel, and literary genres such as Modernism or Greek Tragedy, providing vital contextual information about political, social, religious and artistic relationships. The Companions to Classical Civilisation examine key periods and aspects of the civilisations of ancient Greece and Rome.

The Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture offers specially-commissioned collections of essays which are intended to serve as reference works addressing topics and figures ranging from Plato through Kant to Habermas, and philosophical movements such as the Scottish Enlightenment and German Idealism. This online collection contains over 1000 essays taken from the Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture (more than 100 volumes).

Nash Library recently upgraded its Business Source Elite subscription to a Business Source Complete subscription. This upgrade allows access to the following content:

635 full-text books

277 full-text case studies

17,651 full-text company profiles

1,451 full-text country economic reports

17,558 full-text industry reports

18,000 full-text interviews (executive & analyst)

2,297 full-text market research reports

1,558 full-text peer reviewed journals

2,842 full-text SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analyses

1,525 full-text trade journals and general business magazines

14 full-text working papers collections

25,000 author profiles

Title lists for the above content are available at http://www.ebscohost.com/thisTopic.php?marketID=1&topicID=399.

This upgrade also includes access to Regional Business News which provides full text for more than 50 regional business publications, including the Journal Record and the Journal Record Legislative Report. Titles lists for Regional Business News are available at http://www.ebscohost.com/thisTopic.php?marketID=1&topicID=130.

This database is accessible from any computer as long as you have a USAO faculty, staff, or student e-mail account.

Nash Library now has a subscription to the New Scientist Online Archive through EBSCOhost. This subscription provides full-text of the "New Scientist" back to 1997, includes high quality PDF files, and is not affected by an embargo. As usual, you will be able to access this title from both the library's online catalog and the New Scientist Online Archive link. If you are unfamiliar with this periodical, below is a blurb from their website. If you're forever asking questions of the world around you, you'll love New Scientist. Every issue of New Scientist brings you:

• News - the latest news, across every field of science, from around the world
• Features -in-depth analysis and investigations of key scientific issues from our expert team of writers
• Technology - the latest trends, emerging technologies and devices that could change the way we live and work
• Commentary - thought-provoking information and opinions from world-renowned figures.
• Interviews - fascinating insights into the minds and lives of leading & up-and-coming figures in science and technology
• The Last Word - discover if you know the answers to other readers' random and often bizarre science questions - or send one in yourself
• Jobs - the very latest science and technology vacancies